ahultin

While I understand there seems to be a stigma associated in motorcycles with a male on the back of a males motorcycle (at least in southern California where I have heard it referred to as "riding B***h") I had not thought the same association was present in tandem bicycling until today. I had the opportunity to ride with a co-worker this morning and as he is much less accustomed to riding than myself we opted to take the tandem. My thought was that I would not be held back by him as if I had loaned him a bike and he would not feel the need to "keep up". When I got home my wife appeared in shock that I had a male as stoker! My logic was since both parties are working it is nowhere near the relationship of a passenger on a motorcycle or jetski. Anyone else run into this when riding with a same sex stoker?

I will add that in our home, the Tandem is a family bike so the stoker is either my wife, my 15 yr old daughter, or my 12 yr old son (apparently ok as he is blood)

JanMM

Riding a motorcycle is quite unlike riding a bicycle; two on a tandem bike is hardly comparable to two on a motorbike.
I don't see many same sex tandem teams but have a hard time imagining why that would seem weird to anyone. Hope your wife got over it by now.

kenji666

longbeachgary

The one thing that you can say about male/male tandems is that you don't have to see them for long......

TheWhip

About 10 years ago I was commuting by single bike regularly with a buddy on his single. One day, he said, "Hey I have a tandem, we should bikepool." So we rode the tandem together into our offices in Redmond. During that time I also had a steel pin put in my wrist and couldn't ride a single while I was in the cast for 6 months, so it was quite nice to be able to ride as stoker. It was a quick commute. I don't remember anyone ever passing us on the Sammamish River Trail in the several months we did this. And I don't remember ever getting any rude comments about 2 males riding a tandem.

Oddly, my buddy was more traumatized by having to drop me off at my work, while he rode the tandem alone to his workplace (Microsoft) a half mile away. He made up some excuse about being afraid of how it handled with no stoker, but I think he actually got people constantly yelling at him that he lost someone....

justcrankn

I guess I've had serial male-male "relationships" since I started riding a trike. Then bikes. Then tractors. Then motorcycles, tandems, tripletts, and ATVs. Lately I've had a "relationship" on a golf cart, involving my father-in-law. My wife is okay with these relationships.

waynesulak

I have captained our tandem with 26 year old son on the back. No issues from anyone. Maybe they were just being polite - or being adult. Rude comments about such things seem like immature high school comments to me.

Maybe in the motorcycle community it is more of an issue?

merlinextraligh

I don't think there's a stigma to it; there's just fewer people to which it appeals. I'd wager the majority of tandem teams are couples that use the tandem as a tool to ride together, as oppossed to riding a tandem being an end in itself.

Also, you tend to have less wide disparties in speed between 2 average men cyclists, and a man and woman cyclists. Hence less call for a tandem as an equalizer.

Personally, I wouldn't want to ride a tandem with another guy, other than for a tandem race, or to ride with a disabled stoker. But anyone who wants to, for whatever reason, have at it.

twocicle

While the term "riding B***h" may be slightly derogatory, it is also said tongue-in-cheek (ok, don't go there) much of the time. You will see a lot more same sex teams in the tandem racing crowd for obvious classification reasons.

Here is one link to tandem racing in the NW: https://nwtandemracing.com/

CaptainHaddock

I'll say, that my brother and I have been talking more and more seriously about tandem racing together ever since my wife and I bought our tandem. I've taken my brother on a few differing xc rides and I tell you, having that power that he can put out (combined with his racing experience), entirely changes the ride from one of relationship, to challenge / race pace.

I'd also point out that there are a number of sports which have duo teams of the same gender and there is no such stigma; I'd almost argue that it is more a reflection of your personal comfortably with such a situation than modern societal norms.

kenji666

Not that there's anything wrong with that

StephenH

Ditto to what Merlin said.

I can tell you from my experience, that there's guys I can ride with, and ride 30 miles (on separate bikes) and not say a word. But if there's women involved, then there's conversation. So riding with a female stoker is my preferred arrangement, even though there's not any kind of relationship involved.

One reason you don't see too many male tandem teams is they did that back in the olden days and it could get more dangerous, more speed is not necessarily a good thing.

zonatandem

Like driving your car with a male passenger in the other front seat . . .

B. Carfree

My son, Godzilla, gave up riding a few years ago. He just became frustrated with breaking various bikes, cranks, pedals, bottom brackets (who knew a bottom bracket spindle could even break?), wheels and handlebars. This Spring, he got a horrid flu. It laid him so low that he actually accepted a few rides to campus on one of our tandems (we live three miles from the university he attends). No one even gave us a funny look.

B. Carfree

My wife would make disparaging comments about that. She wouldn't even notice the genders, she just doesn't care for cars.

Yeah, we were made for each other.

VaultGuru

In 2009, my longtime riding buddy and I rode the STP (Seattle to Portland). On one of our longer training rides, we started talking about what it would be like to do a double century on my Calfee. We agreed that it would be a kick to do it. He is slightly taller than my wife so he fit perfectly on the back. He is also a very strong rider. We never got weird looks or negative comments, but that was probably because we could easily pass fast pacelines and when it was safe, which wasn't very often. 10,000 riders on the course made it very dangerous to go fast for the first 100 miles. After that, we had some pretty clear roads and were able to ride at 25-28mph for long periods of time. A few guys jumped on our wheel, but most couldn't hold our pace for more than 15 minutes. We got a couple of comments at the end and they were all positive. What a great experience.

72andsunny

Since nobody has mentioned it, here's an interesting blog post on the subject (not my blog).

PS: My wife is generally less than pleased if I end up with another woman on the back of a tandem, but would not care at all if I went for a ride with a male stoker.

https://fiveislandsorchard.wordpress....s-on-a-tandem/

Now on to the rant part – what didn’t occur to either of us, but seems to occur to everyone else we talked to, is the assumption that two guys on a tandem bike must necessarily be *****exuals. It’s not as if anyone was actually rude to us or hecked or anything; this is Massachusetts after all, America’s own Gomorrah, but the guys at the gas station where we met up were clearly having a good time with the concept, and we passed by a young mother with two young children who smiled as if to say “aren’t we so progressive here in Cambridge” and pointed us out to the kids. Even at the place we work, which is an MIT solar cell startup company no less, not exactly a bastion of redneckedness, folks had the same impression – “I expect to see a guy and a girl on a tandem, or maybe two women who are really close friends. But two guys on a tandem – that’s gay.”

...

What is so gay about two guys on a tandem bicycle? I mean, football players dress up in skin-tight pants, line up, and bend over for the purpose of passing a hunk of leather between one anothers’ legs, and nobody is calling them gay. You aren’t even touching the other rider on a tandem bike. Are most guys so laden with leftover teenage trauma that they wouldn’t ride a tandem with another guy, so as not to risk getting verbally assaulted (or worse)? It can’t be that full-grown guys are actually that insecure in their sexuality – it must be more of a reflexive thing. And so what if there were two gay guys on a tandem bike? This is 2009 in New England, where last I knew all six states allow gay marriage (fingers crossed for my home state of Maine this election night). How are we ever going to arrive at an enlightened understanding of gender if two guys can’t ride the same tandem bicycle without folks s******ing? It puts me in mind of accounts from the time of Abe Lincoln, when it was apparently common for two (or more) men to share a bed without any implication of sodomy. So, gentlemen, if guys in 1850 could manage that, surely we can manage tandem bicyclery.

catonec 

did you really name your kid godzilla?? thats awesome.

B. Carfree

No, but his use of bikes is reminiscent of the short movie "Godzilla Meets Bambi" with the bike playing the part of Bambi, so that's what he is called when he rides.

obrentharris 

Who really cares what the small-minded think?
Brent

ahultin

in this particular case, the small minded happened to be my spouse so in the pursuit of marital bliss i must give it thought

mtn.cyclist

While I most always have ridden tandem with my wife, I have ridden with another male before. A cycling buddy of mine and I used to time trial a tandem some so we trained several rides together over the course of a couple of years. I never gave it any thought other than another reason to ride nor did I ever get any kind of negative feedback from anyone. It was a hoot to ride a bike so fast.

jfarwell

Years ago I rode with a buddy a few times on our old Burley. He was one of the best cyclists in our bike club. Cannot imagine anyone ever gave it any thought, just a couple of friends out for a bike ride. I could not believe how fast that bike ran on the flats, but I did notice we had the same challenges with hills that my wife and I have.

Carbonfiberboy 

I will have the opportunity this year to ride the RAMROD course, but on a different day, with a male stoker. I'm really looking forward to it! My wife and I could ride it, but she has no interest in that. I've ridden RAMROD a few times on my single. This guy and I ride well together, climb out of the saddle easily, etc. He rides a little faster cadence than I do, being about 20 years younger, but that's fine. We went out with some fast guys on singles a couple months ago on a fairly hilly course and just destroyed them. I knew we couldn't outclimb them if everything was equal, so our tactic was to climb near the back of the group and then attack on the flats and descents, tiring them before the next climb. Eventually we attacked on a climb, game over. We couldn't quite get the bike in the truck and our clothes changed before they came in, too bad.

Yeah, male stokers can be really fun! Stigma, nonsense, who cares about stigma when you can go fast! Actually, this group knows us both well and gave a hearty "Oh, no!" when they saw the two of us get of the truck, rather than me and my wife.

Retro Grouch 

I think that you need to spend more time on the 41. No matter what you do, or don't do, there is a group of riders who are going to laugh at you for it. HTFU.